Guest Blogging, Italian Style: This Is Gabrielle Micheletti

The Rhode Island lifestyle. It sinks its teeth deep, from when you are a kid falling asleep on the beach in Narragansett in the summer to when you find yourself waking up in the fall in a place where your grandparents had roots but could only dream of - Italy.

Truth be told, my family doesn't exactly have roots in Milan per se, but somehow that’s where I ended up, and that’s where I've been jetting off to for the last 3 years.

From riding my bike around the neighborhood in western Cranston, to riding my bike around the Italian canals (called navigli) in Milan. City of design-around-every-corner, city of the exclusive international fashion world, city of aperitivo. Not aperitif. Aperitivo. (Who knows why the English decided to adopt a French term for something so quintessentially Italian or really, so Milanese at its finest?)

You should know that Milan is, in fact, getting set to become one of the centers of the world next year, when it hosts the Expo (or Universal Exposition), an event focused on food, agriculture, and sustainability. Just for some perspective, the Eiffel Tower in Paris was constructed for the Expo in 1889, and for this 2015 Expo, there are over 140 countries expected to participate.

To take full advantage of the opportunity that is Expo 2015, this native Rhode Islander currently has a project called Intaste in the works. Intaste will offer visits and tastings with artisanal producers of local products such as wine, cheese, salami, beer, olive oil, and more. It'll feature a la carte bookings (directly with the producers), all with a clean, simple aesthetic. 

Like a behind-the-scenes Federal Hill meets the East Side with an infusion of Farm Fresh RI, only better.

Because honestly...this is Italy.

Grazie,

Gabrielle

Gabrielle Micheletti, also known as Gab or Gabri to her Italian friends, graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a double major in Philosophy and Italian before relocating to Milan, Italy. She has dual citizenship in the United States and Italy. Watch for her new venture, Intaste.co, coming soon.